Ice! Cold! Beeeeeeeer!
Long time Jays fans will fondly remember these words being bellowed out by The Beer Guy (Wayne McMahon) at the Skydome up until 2008, signaling to them that a frothy pint of remarkably flavourless and REMARKABLY expensive beer was nearby. But the taste and the price didn’t matter — in the bleachers, with a dog and some salty popcorn, that beer was going to be the best you could conceive of. And frankly, in that moment, no bitter bomb IPA or weird fruited sour was going to replace it.
It takes an audacious brewery to try and can that magic, and what better one than the Toronto-based baseball-themed Left Field Brewery? With a baseball reference on every can, and a reputation for consistently producing excellent beer (their Eephus Oatmeal Brown Ale is an all time favourite of mine), Left Field set out to do the impossible — put Ice Cold Beer in a can.
Here’s what I thought:
Ice Cold Beer Review
I poured this into a pint glass for the picture and to take a look at the beer itself, but I may be the first and only person to do this. Ice Cold Beer is absolutely meant to be drank from a frosty can, dripping moisture, pulled directly from a cooler filled with ice. That said, it poured a lovely pale straw with a lacy, loose head.
One thing that makes Ice Cold Beer different than what you probably grab at the game, is that it’s a stock standard ale, as opposed to the ubiquitous lagers. The process of lagering a beer is more labour intensive and costly, which is why it’s often left to the macro domestics (although craft lagers are becoming increasingly common.)
Despite the difference in process, the outcome is remarkably close to what you want to drink when reaching for something called “Ice Cold Beer”. It smells sweetly of malt and not much else — there’s very little hop presence at all. As for taste, what’s there to say? It tasted like the bit of Moosehead my dad poured me when I was 16 and the hockey playoffs were on. It tasted like $10 pints me and buddies got after our first 19+ trip to the dome. It tasted like Ice. Cold. Beeeeer. And it was lovely. Plus, at a reasonable 4.5% ABV, these can easily be enjoyed in succession.
I love the gimmick, I love the execution, and I love Left Field for making me laugh and feeling refreshed. Grab a six pack of these and crush ’em.
